A journey into the depths of motherhood.

Gluten Free

Anyway, Hubby got a deer this year, so we’ve been spending time processing and eating it. The roasts have been amazing, but I’ve been hesitant to make anything with the ground meat. I had this weird idea that ground venison wouldn’t taste so great so I kept putting it off.

I did a little experiment to see if shepherd’s pie would translate well with ground venison. I made a few adjustments to the recipe and it turned out pretty delicious so I’m sharing it with you guys! I’m really glad it turned out well because we have a lot of ground venison, so it’s nice to know that this is one option that’s palatable. Hamling even had two helpings!

While the bacon is frying, start boiling the potatoes. Boil them for 20 minutes.

Remove the bacon and place on a plate. Melt the butter in the bacon grease and add the diced veggies. Cook until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the venison, spices and garlic and cook until the meat is fully brown.

If using fresh green veggies, add them with the broth. Bring to a simmer, cover, and turn to low.

Preheat oven to 420°F

Simmer the meat and veggies for as long as it takes to preheat the oven.

At this point the potatoes should be done. Drain the potatoes, return to the pan and add the remaining ingredients. Mash until smooth.

Crumble the bacon and set aside.

When the oven is preheated add frozen corn and bacon to the filling and spread the mashed potatoes over top. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until the potatoes start to get golden. Let sit for 15 minutes and then serve.

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I try to cut the sugar in half for everything sweet I bake. Not because I’m making a concerted effort to be healthy, but because I can’t handle (what seems like) the excessive amounts of sugar that things like cookies and cakes call for.

I went on an intense candida diet for a while where I cut all sugar, including fruit, for two weeks. After that I reintroduced fruit, but kept refined sugars out. Ever since then I have a much lower tolerance for sweet things which leads to awkward situations where I get served cornbread as an appetizer and it feels like I’m eating dessert before my dinner. I honestly wanted to save that cornbread and just have it after my meal with a bit of butter and honey, haha.

Anyway, I automatically cut the sugar in any given dessert recipe in half (excepting yeasted things because the yeast needs the sugar to actually work), which can create interesting results. In cookies it manifests as less spread, so you have to smoosh the dough before baking unless you enjoy oddly cake-like cookies. In brownies it manifests as a less fudge-y texture. So, if you’re a fan of cake brownies, no adjustments are needed.

I wanted to make brownies that were somewhere in between, so I tried various adjustments and I think I came up with something that is pretty awesome. I haven’t tried using liquid sweetener (like maple syrup) yet, but I’ll get back to you.

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My crock pot is my best friend. If I know I’m going to have a busy evening I can start dinner that morning and not have to worry about cooking during what I affectionately refer to as “the witching hour.” Around the time I’m getting ready to start dinner, Hamlette is usually getting tired and a little cranky. I often end up backpacking her in the mei tai just so I can get food ready for a family dinner when Hubby gets home from work. If he’s not working, usually he can hold her while I cook, but if he’s home we eat at an earlier time.

Ah, the joys of shift work!

Anyway, crock pots. I can’t recommend them enough. There are loads of crock pot freezer meals that you can make ahead of time and then just dump the bag of goodies into the crock pot that morning for a lovely, no hassle, dinner. This isn’t one of those, but it’s still really easy.

As an added bonus: zucchini is super delicious in curry, so if you grow zucchini, or have a neighbor who is always trying to give you zucchini, this is a good way to use it up!

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Autumn has begun and so has the pumpkin-ocalypse! Everything is slowly being consumed with pumpkin spice flavor, sometimes with amazing results and sometimes with head-scratching disgust.

So I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon! Heh.

I wanted to share a recipe with you guys for gluten free pumpkin breakfast muffins. They are really tasty! I found a recipe in a magazine for pumpkin cakes using regular flours and converted it to gluten free. These are perfect if you know you’re going to have a busy morning: you can make them the night before and take them with you to have breakfast on the go.

Don’t worry, t looks like it has a lot of ingredients, but that’s mostly because I broke up the pumpkin pie spice into separate measurements (because I don’t have the spice mix).

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I apologize for the quality of this picture: I was in a hurry when I was taking it. So, while I took three separate pictures, none of them turned out very well.

Anyway, it’s getting to be a bit colder here, which is excellent chili weather. The best thing to eat with chili is cornbread (of course) so I make a lot of it. The trouble is that most recipes call for sour cream and milk, so I decided to try using some alternative ingredients.

This is the (super delicious) result. The recipe is a little bit of work, but it’s totally worth it.

Adjust oven racks to lower-middle and middle positions and heat oven to 450°F. Place a 10 inch skillet (preferably cast-iron) on the middle rack and heat for 10 minutes.

Spread cornmeal on a rimmed baking sheet and toast on the bottom rack until fragrant and lightly browned, about 5 minutes.

Transfer toasted cornmeal to a large bowl and whisk in yogurt and milk. Set aside.

When skillet is hot, add the avocado oil and heat for another 5 minutes.

Using potholders, remove the skillet from the oven and add the coconut oil to the hot avocado oil, swirling gently to incorporate. Pour hot oil mixture into the cornmeal mixture and whisk until combined (resist the urge to scrape the extra oil out with a spatula). Whisk in baking powder, baking soda and salt. The batter will immediately start to rise. This is normal.

Whisk in the eggs then pour the batter into the hot skillet and place on the middle rack with a clean cookie sheet underneath to catch any drips that may occur.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the top begins to brown and crack and the sides are golden brown, rotating skillet halfway.

Allow the bread to cool for 5 minutes in the skillet before flipping it out onto a cooling rack.

Cool for 10 minutes and then serve.

Notes

This works best with yogurt that’s past it’s date, which basically means it is more sour than fresh yogurt. I usually keep an eye on the dairy discount section of the stores I frequent and make this whenever I pick up a tub of coconut milk yogurt that’s about to “go bad.”

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Last night our little chicken died, we’re not sure what was wrong with her. She has always looked a little sickly, but I thought she had been looking better recently until she spent all day in the coop yesterday. Hubby opened the coop this morning and took care of her body. It’s a little sad, but life goes on.

On that note, today I’m sharing a recipe for a vegan pudding.

I love sweet potatoes and recently I’ve been buying them in bags (rather than loose) because Hamlette is really liking solid foods – she has 6 teeth already! I follow a paleo page on Facebook and they shared a recipe for sweet potato chocolate pudding I’d been wanting to try, but I couldn’t find it so I picked the first one I googled. I made that recipe but I didn’t like the texture at all so I tried mixing in some coconut milk. The coconut milk did the trick: the grainy mousse turned into a nice, smooth pudding.

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It’s peach season (sort of, it’s kind of the end of the season now) so we’ve got a lot of peaches. That means a lot of peach cobbler (and lots of frozen peaches). I’ve been experimenting with different recipes to get the perfect peach cobbler and I think I’ve done it. It’s perfectly bread-y, and just the right amount of sweet. This is one of those recipes that, if you didn’t say anything, no one would know it was gluten free. It’s also easy to make this vegan and, though I can’t personally vouch for this, I bet it’s equally delicious because coconut oil is amazing.

The first cobbler I made didn’t have enough cobbler base. It called for a 3 qt (I think) dish, so I looked on the bottom of my 9×13 pyrex and confirmed it was the proper size. I think what the recipe actually wanted me to use was something smaller with a higher lip. Anyway, what I ended up with was a cobbler that was good. It was reminiscent of the “graham” crackers I make sometimes in flavor, but it was just too thin.

The second cobbler was all oat flour and it was the perfect thickness in the 9×13 pan, but it called for a whopping 4 teaspoons of baking powder. When I was mixing everything together I thought, wow that is A LOT of baking powder! But gluten free cooking can be weird sometimes so i figured I’d just follow the recipe and see how it turned out. Well, it definitely had too much baking powder. You could taste the baking powder. Not good.

So the third (and fourth) cobbler(s) I made were a mix of the two recipes. This recipe is a winner. I took two photos of it, but I couldn’t pick which I liked best so I included both of them because I think they both show the texture of the cobbler accurately.

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I know it’s sort of late in the season to be writing about salads, but we’ve been eating a ton of them lately in an effort to be budget friendly. So I thought I’d share some tips for making a salad worth being a main course.

Mix greens.
I buy a head each of organic red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, and romaine. I take them home, rinse them off, chop them up, and mix them well in a large bowl. This usually lasts me for a week and a half or more, depending on hubby’s work schedule. But, how do you keep your lettuce from browning? you ask. Storing chopped lettuce in a mason jar with a standard canning lid set (not a plastic lid) and a paper towel on the bottom really works. The lettuce will stay fresh for as long as 2 weeks.

I don’t recommend adding spinach greens to your salad raw because of their high oxalate content which prevents absorption of calcium. Beet greens are a bit problematic as well. If you have a yard that you don’t treat with chemicals, you can grab some dandelion greens for your salad. I wouldn’t recommend buying them: they cost almost $3 for a small bunch where I am, and that seems like a ridiculous price to pay for something that grows everywhere. Just be sure to pick leaves from plants that haven’t bolted yet (started growing a flower) so you’re greens aren’t overly bitter.

Multiple sources of protein.
I try to have meat of some form on my salads if I’m making one for dinner. I’ll put less meat or no meat at all on lunchtime salads because I usually want a lighter meal for lunch.
Other than meat I like to add different kinds of sprouted beans. You can use whatever kind of beans you like; they don’t necessarily need to be sprouted. I sprout mine for better nutrient absorption, and I like the way they taste, but it’s totally optional. A bonus with using cooked and cooled beans is that you get some resistant starch with your salad, which helps your digestion.
Soaked and dried nuts are also a great addition to salads because they add a delightful crunch.

Fermented veggies or pickled veggies.
I like to top my salads with some purple cabbage cortido, because it’s delicious (even though I hate sauerkraut) and crunchy. It also adds a delightful tang to your salad. If I don’t have any on hand I like to chop up some pickles, pickled okra is good as well, or artichoke hearts. Olives are also delicious.

Sprouted seeds.
I love putting sprouted and dried sunflower seeds on top of my salad. This is something I picked up from my awesome mother-in-law. She makes incredible salads.

Dressing.
I find that sometimes I don’t even need dressing if I’ve put enough stuff on the salad, but my go-to dressing recipe is below (this is a good dressing if you’re fighting a candida overgrowth):

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When I asked Hamling what kind of party he wanted for his birthday this year he said he wanted an airplane party. While we were scrolling through the internet trying to pick out a cake he’d like to have he saw one that was made with fondant. I’ve never made fondant before, and I had only heard people say it was gross. Not only that, but any kind of frosting that takes as much powdered sugar as fondant gives me an unpleasant tickling feeling at the back of my throat just thinking about it. I wanted to make a fondant that was not as sweet, but still functioned fairly well. Impossible, right?

Challenge accepted.

I ended up with something that was still pretty sweet, but I was afraid to use any more starch than I already had. As far as frosting goes, this was pretty good, and it was very workable. Maybe I’ll practice my fondant smoothing skills next time I make it.

Combine gelatin and water and let sit until thick. Place it on a double boiler to melt.

Add the syrup and mix well. Add shortening or butter and mix until just melted. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Cool mixture until lukewarm.

Put 1 cup of starch and 1 cup of powdered sugar into a bowl. Make a well in the center and pour the liquid gelatin mixture into the well. Stir with a wooden spoon until combined. Add the remaining starch and stir.

Generously dust a flat surface with powdered sugar and pour out the sticky mess in your bowl onto the sugar. Knead in the remaining powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time until the fondant no longer sticks to your fingers.

Roll out between two sheets of plastic wrap, brushing the top of the fondant with oil to prevent sticking.

Apply to cake.

Notes:

If you want colored fondant and you’re using liquid coloring, add the color of your choice to the liquid before you mix it into the starch/sugar.

If your cake is going to be sitting out for a little bit, brush the entire surface with oil to keep the fondant from drying out and cracking.

This will store for up to a month in the fridge. If you find it’s dry when you take it out to use it, knead in some more oil.

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First, congratulations to Bianca who won the Lilla Rose giveaway! Super excited for you!

How do you take a flattering picture of salad dressing??

Ok, that being said, I love The Old Spaghetti Factory. My favorite dish to get is the potpourri which is a mix of red sauce, clam sauce, and mizithra cheese with browned butter. I can’t have it right now because I’m avoiding dairy, but I can dream about it.

Anyway, they have a really tasty house-made “ranch” called the creamy pesto. Again, I can’t have it because it has milk in it, but I found a recipe online for duplicating it and decided to try making it dairy free. It was a success! This dressing is really, really delicious. You can use any dairy free milk of your choice (though I would suggest avoiding soy milk, particularly if you have trouble with your thyroid) and it turns out great!

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About Me

My name is Jennifer Fitch. I'm married to an awesome nerd and we have 2 children. I've recently discovered my love of food. I want to talk about it all the time! Realistically, not very many people share this interest in food conversation so I created a blog as an outlet to share the things I learn about nutrition and my favorite recipes.